3 ms·

It is curious that you can upgrade all versions of Windows in a sequence and it does work.

by 29athrowaway 2y ago

c0nsumer 2y ago
Microsoft is, generally, very very good at backward compatibility.
- bobmcnamara 2y ago
  Indeed, PE+Wine is the most stable Linux ABI.
  - lmm 2y ago
    That's because Linux is remarkably bad at backward compatibility rather than Windows being remarkably good at it. FreeBSD's stable ABI is if anything better than PE+Wine.
    - zinekeller 2y ago
      That's too much overbearing for Linux, as the kernel itself tries to maintain backwards compatibility (for userland). It's everything else that breaks backwards compatibility (looking at the most egregious, Gnome, although there are many system-level libraries sharing the blame for this).
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      As are most commercial UNIXes.
    - redeeman 2y ago
      nothing stops you from using the old libraries and all that stuff forever?
      - lmm 2y ago
        Linux distributions tend not to ship them - AIUI there is some unique problem with linux ld that makes it harder to have multiple versions of the same library installed. And lately there's a lot of tight coupling in the whole kernel/udev (or hal, remember hal?)/systemd chain, so even if old dynamic libraries are available, old dbus services might not be and you end up in much the same place.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Microsoft is, generally, very very good at backward compatibility. It was. A long time ago. Running old games in Win10 has become a big challenge.
ryao 2y ago
Not anymore. Microsoft dropped 32-bit support and there is no 32-bit to 64-bit upgrade path other than a fresh installation.
- tech234a 2y ago
  Looks like we both commented this at about the same time :)
- Krutonium 2y ago
  None that are official anyway, there are ways to trick Windows into doing a 32 => 64 bit conversion. Very unsupported, but it is possible.
tech234a 2y ago
Can you update from 32-bit Windows to 64 bit Windows? Windows 11 is 64-bit only, so the chain might be broken.
qingcharles 2y ago
Haha, I had to look up to see... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdnqoVd7wY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdnqoVd7wY8
extraduder_ire 2y ago
This isn't that surprising. Each new version of windows that came along had great effort put into allowing existing users to upgrade each time. Rather than one big hugely impressive thing, it's less than ten pretty impressive things in sequence.

It is curious that you can upgrade all versions of Windows in a sequence and it does work.

c0nsumer 2y ago

Microsoft is, generally, very very good at backward compatibility.

bobmcnamara 2y ago
Indeed, PE+Wine is the most stable Linux ABI.
- lmm 2y ago
  That's because Linux is remarkably bad at backward compatibility rather than Windows being remarkably good at it. FreeBSD's stable ABI is if anything better than PE+Wine.
  - zinekeller 2y ago
    That's too much overbearing for Linux, as the kernel itself tries to maintain backwards compatibility (for userland). It's everything else that breaks backwards compatibility (looking at the most egregious, Gnome, although there are many system-level libraries sharing the blame for this).
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    As are most commercial UNIXes.
  - redeeman 2y ago
    nothing stops you from using the old libraries and all that stuff forever?
    - lmm 2y ago
      Linux distributions tend not to ship them - AIUI there is some unique problem with linux ld that makes it harder to have multiple versions of the same library installed. And lately there's a lot of tight coupling in the whole kernel/udev (or hal, remember hal?)/systemd chain, so even if old dynamic libraries are available, old dbus services might not be and you end up in much the same place.
hulitu 2y ago
> Microsoft is, generally, very very good at backward compatibility. It was. A long time ago. Running old games in Win10 has become a big challenge.

ryao 2y ago

Not anymore. Microsoft dropped 32-bit support and there is no 32-bit to 64-bit upgrade path other than a fresh installation.

tech234a 2y ago
Looks like we both commented this at about the same time :)
Krutonium 2y ago
None that are official anyway, there are ways to trick Windows into doing a 32 => 64 bit conversion. Very unsupported, but it is possible.

tech234a 2y ago

Can you update from 32-bit Windows to 64 bit Windows? Windows 11 is 64-bit only, so the chain might be broken.

qingcharles 2y ago

Haha, I had to look up to see... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdnqoVd7wY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdnqoVd7wY8

extraduder_ire 2y ago

This isn't that surprising. Each new version of windows that came along had great effort put into allowing existing users to upgrade each time. Rather than one big hugely impressive thing, it's less than ten pretty impressive things in sequence.